_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Charges and counter-charges
Attack on cardinal
A tense week of conflict between the Catholic Church and the Peruvian government ended on December 2 when Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Lima asked Catholics to forgive the “mistakes or ill intentions of those who do not understand the nature of the Church.”

The conflict between Catholic leaders and government officials began on Sunday, November 25, when the TV program “Periodistas” carried a story about an exchange of letters between Cardinal Cipriani and his predecessor, the late Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora. The “Periodistas” story claimed that the current archbishop—who is also the primate of Peru—favored the government of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

On the next Monday, Cardinal Cipriani revealed during a radio interview that the letters he had exchanged with Cardinal Vargas—a well known critic of the Fujimori regime—were “manipulated” by “someone interested in creating a division that never existed between me and my beloved predecessor.” Cardinal Cipriani also revealed that, as part of that campaign against him, his signature had been forged on three letters that had been created to suggest a close relationship between him and the Fujimori government. (The fraudulent letters made it appear that Cardinal Cipriani was lobbying for favorable treatment of Fujimori’s spy chief, Vladimir Montesinos, who was at the center of a massive scandal that eventually brought down the government.) These false documents were even brought to the Vatican by a ranking government official—who later apologized to him, the cardinal disclosed.

On November 27, the daily Expreso published a front-page story alleging that Bishop Luis Bambarén Gastelumendi, the president of the Peruvian bishops’ conference, had given the false letters to the current Peruvian justice minister, Fernando Olivera. Expreso accused Bishop Bambarén of “conspiring” against Cardinal Cipriani, and said that the forged letters were uncritically accepted by Olivera. The government minister then took advantage of a scheduled visit in Europe to stop in Rome and request the removal of both the apostolic nuncio and the Archbishop of Lima.

The Peruvian bishops’ conference immediately issued a statement denouncing the Expreso story as a “vicious and false attack against Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani and the president of the Peruvian bishops’ conference, Luis Bambarén.” The bishops’ statement went on to insist that “the Peruvian episcopate is now more united than ever.”

That same day, Peru’s President Alejandro Toledo acknowledged that his government had received some letters “involving some relevant personalities of the clergy and showing potentially improper conduct.” He said these letters came from “a reliable source,” and he indicated that they had indeed been brought to the Vatican. However, President Toledo also confessed that these letters had been “proven to be false.” At that point, he said, the government informed Cardinal Cipriani about the forgeries.

The statement by President Toledo sparked an uproar. Several members of parliament demanded an explanation from Minister Olivera, while newspapers charged that the government was meddling in Church affairs. The daily El Comercio said that the government should “formally and unambiguously apologize to the nuncio and the cardinal,” in order to put an end to “this embarrassing gaffe that should had never had occurred in the first place.”

On Saturday, December 1, President Toledo invited both Cardinal Cipriani and the apostolic nuncio to the government palace, and after a 90-minute private conversation—at which Justice Minister Olivera was present—Toledo proclaimed that the furor had been resolved.

The next day, as he celebrated the first Sunday of Advent, Cardinal Cipriani said , “I personally forgive; let us all forgive with a generous and loving heart.” He continued: “Let us put this episode in the past and move on—but let us also remember that we must never let the Church, our mother, be offended, because an attack on the shepherd is an attack on the whole body.”

Although Cardinal Cipriani has now declared the episode closed, many voices in the parliament and the media are still pushing for further clarifications. Some legislators say Olivera must be held “politically responsible” for the crisis. Several newspapers have said, more pointedly, that Olivera should disclose the source of the forged letters.

Back to Catholic World Report January 2002 Table of Contents